Monthly Archives: January 2014

I don’t watch much TV these days, it keeps reminding me that it’s partly my fault our country is in such a mess. I’m not spending enough money to fuel our economy and when I do spend my only reward is a warning to save more to finance my old age.

The newsreader says I’m using far too much electricity, oil and water, I also eat the wrong things and drink far too much alcohol in the evenings. I’m so useless I can’t even dispose of my rubbish correctly and if I take a walk along the beach I’m told my presence will only pollute it.

Where can I begin to help put things right?

How can I save the economy and the environment?

The answer is I can’t, not as things stand. The big social economy is doomed to years of stagflation and the elite who’ve grown fat on it should kiss good-bye to swilling champagne at their banquets. They preach austerity to me and my family, yet there’s no sign of them setting an example. We’re more than happy with tea and sandwiches and so should they be, seeing as they claim to be so concerned about our nation’s diminishing resources.

When I say “tea and sandwiches” I mean it quite literally, my husband now takes a lunchbox to work and we save almost two pounds in money every day. Our base costs have contracted and we’ve already noticed the benefits – which are far more than merely financial. Continue reading →

The first time she might have died came at age 17, when a saddle horse reared and threw her, breaking her back.

Over the years, she survived many more life-threatening events, each worse than the last: Guillain-Barré syndrome and its accompanying complete if temporary paralysis, pneumonia, spinal stenosis requiring two surgeries, an aneurysm (two more operations, and yes, they were brain surgery), a stroke, a heart attack, another bout of pneumonia. Resilient and resolute, she snubbed death eight times.

That last morning, she awoke with a little sniffle. By evening she was gone, done in by a common cold.

Quote

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”
~ Nora Ephron